Trump de­clares new se­nior staff changes

In an­other se­nior staff shakeup in­side his of­ten tur­bu­lent ad­min­is­tra­tion, US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said yes­ter­day that he has picked the two peo­ple he wants to be the next US at­tor­ney gen­eral and the next US am­bas­sador to the United Na­tions.

He said that he will nom­i­nate Wil­liam Barr, who was at­tor­ney gen­eral un­der for­mer pres­i­dent Ge­orge H W Bush in the 1990s, to fill that top job again at the US Jus­tice Depart­ment.

Barr would re­place Act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­eral Matthew Whi­taker, who has been in that po­si­tion since Trump forced out Jeff Ses­sions as at­tor­ney gen­eral a month ago.

Trump also said he will put for­ward State Depart­ment spokes­woman Heather Nauert as am­bas­sador to the United Na­tions.

Nauert, a for­mer host at Fox News Chan­nel, would re­place Nikki Ha­ley, who an­nounced in Oc­to­ber that she would re­sign at the end of this year.

Both ap­point­ments would re­quire US Se­nate con­fir­ma­tion.

Trump, speak­ing to re­porters out­side the White House, also said that he would make a per­son­nel an­nounce­ment con­cern­ing the Pen­tagon to­day.

“It will have to do with the joint chiefs of staff, the suc­ces­sion,” he told re­porters out­side the White House, sug­gest­ing he may name a new top US mil­i­tary of­fi­cer.

Sep­a­rately, CNN re­ported yes­ter­day that John Kelly is ex­pected to re­sign in com­ing days as White House chief of staff, cit­ing un­named sources.

Democrats are promis­ing ag­gres­sive over­sight of Trump’s ad­min­is­tra­tion and busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ties when they take con­trol of the US House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Jan­uary, fol­low­ing their gains in last month’s elec­tions.

Spe­cial Coun­sel Robert Muller is con­tin­u­ing to in­ves­ti­gate Rus­sian in­ter­fer­ence in the 2016 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, any col­lu­sion be­tween Moscow and Trump’s cam­paign and pos­si­ble ob­struc­tion of jus­tice.

More de­tails of the in­quiry were set to emerge in court fil­ings.

Barr, who was at­tor­ney gen­eral un­der Bush from 1991 to 1993 and has worked in the pri­vate sec­tor since then, would over­see Mueller’s probe if the Se­nate confirms him in the job again.

Barr is likely to face pres­sure at his con­fir­ma­tion hear­ings to show that he would pro­tect Mueller from po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.

Crit­ics of Trump have long been con­cerned that the pres­i­dent wants to end the Mueller probe.

Trump, who has re­peat­edly de­nounced the in­ves­ti­ga­tion as a “witch hunt”, de­nies any col­lu­sion with Rus­sia or any ob­struc­tion of jus­tice.

Rus­sia de­nies US in­tel­li­gence agen­cies’ find­ings that it med­dled in the 2016 elec­tion cam­paign to try to tilt the vote in Trump’s favour.

Barr also may face scru­tiny about past com­ments ques­tion­ing the po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions of Mueller’s team and sup­port­ing Trump’s de­ci­sion last year to fire Fed­eral Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion (FBI) di­rec­tor James Comey.

“I hope he will use the op­por­tu­nity to un­am­bigu­ously com­mit, should he be con­firmed, to up­hold­ing the rule of law,” Demo­cratic Se­na­tor Pa­trick Leahy said on Twit­ter.

Trump called Barr “a ter­rific man, a ter­rific per­son, a bril­liant man”, in re­marks to re­porters as he left for an out-of-town event.

“He was my first choice from Day One. Re­spected by Repub­li­cans and re­spected by Democrats. He will be nom­i­nated for United States At­tor­ney Gen­eral and hope­fully that process will go very quickly,” Trump said.

Whi­taker, a for­mer US at­tor­ney who is cur­rently act­ing head of the Jus­tice Depart­ment, has drawn crit­i­cism for past busi­ness ven­tures and crit­i­cal com­ments about the Mueller in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­fore he joined the depart­ment.

Trump mocked and be­lit­tled Ses­sions for more than a year, an­gry at Ses­sions’s de­ci­sion to re­cuse him­self from over­see­ing the Rus­sia probe be­cause he had worked for Trump’s elec­tion cam­paign.

If she is con­firmed to the UN am­bas­sador post, Nauert would bring lit­tle diplo­matic ex­pe­ri­ence to a highly vis­i­ble in­ter­na­tional role.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Re­pub­li­can, praised Nauert as “one of the United States’ strong­est voices on the global stage”.

Democrats were less en­thu­si­as­tic.

“She’s clearly not qual­i­fied for this job, but these days it seems that the most im­por­tant qual­i­fi­ca­tion is that you show up on Don­ald Trump’s TV screen,” Demo­cratic Se­na­tor Chris Mur­phy said on CNN.

Other na­tions with veto power on the UN Se­cu­rity Coun­cil are all rep­re­sented by am­bas­sadors with decades of for­eign pol­icy ex­pe­ri­ence.

Nauert would suc­ceed Ha­ley, a for­mer South Carolina gov­er­nor who also had lit­tle ex­pe­ri­ence in world af­fairs be­fore she took the job.

Ha­ley in­sisted that she be made a mem­ber of Trump’s cab­i­net and his Na­tional Se­cu­rity Coun­cil to bol­ster her power within the ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Bring­ing Nauert aboard in a sub-cab­i­net role could di­min­ish the po­si­tion, said Stephen Pom­per, a for­mer Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cial.

Trump: (Barr) was my first choice from Day One. Re­spected by Repub­li­cans and re­spected by Democrats. He will be nom­i­nated for United States At­tor­ney Gen­eral and hope­fully that process will go very quickly.